


Shadowboxer

by somekindofseizure



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Boxing, First Kiss, Fluff, MSR, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6744865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somekindofseizure/pseuds/somekindofseizure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt to get Mulder and Scully in the ring together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadowboxer

The witness is a wiry middleweight with a hoodie pulled up over his head and an unnerving facial tick, no doubt made worse by the unspeakable things he’s seen here at the gym lately. Mulder is wrapping up and readying himself for a fight with Scully. Not about his theory – that will come later – but about lunch. He wants pizza and she doesn’t like having it twice in one week.

She’s already waiting by the ring when he turns around. There had been a low rumble revolution when she emptied out the locker room, parting the sea of sweaty, scary fighters with her badge. Now she’s petting the bottom rope like it’s a Clydesdale. Mulder approaches from behind, hands on his hips to project lunch choice dominance.

“Anything curious about the locker room?” he asks. 

“Other than that they found a dead body in there?” 

The gym is in a rough part of town. The vibe is territorial, thready with testosterone and secrecy. A safe deposit box for lifetimes of pent-up rage. Several of the men are watching Scully run her fingers all over their stuff, jaws clenching as their jockstraps no doubt tighten.

“Let me guess. You think his shadow killed him,” she says. It’s true, the witness had seen the victim sparring with his shadow late at night… and the shadow violently fighting back. But Mulder is concentrated on winning the other argument for now, determined to avoid the sad salad she would have them eat.

“Can we talk about it over pizza?” 

She picks up a pair of boxing gloves and spins on the back of one heel to face him.

“You win, we can have pizza. I win, I pick.”

“You like boxing?”

“That or I just really don’t want pizza.”

“I don’t hit girls.”   
She raises both eyebrows and begins to unbutton her blazer. Some of Scully’s jackets are jackets and some are more like shirts, and this is one of the latter, buttons all the way to the top.

“That’s sexist, Mulder.” She tosses the gloves to him and they land heavy with dried sweat in his palms. She steps out of her shoes, trying on gloves in a light blue t-shirt. She’s like Alice in Wonderland in this place, tiny by comparison to everything, and the center of attention. “I trained at the academy, just like you.”

Scully does not ask him to come out and play very often. He’s excited to take her up on it, though he’s not sure how this will work, considering their size difference. He takes off his jacket, pulls his tie over his head, and rolls up his sleeves. He sits on the edge of the ring to take off his shoes.

“What’s the matter? Can’t fight in heels?” she asks as she climbs up next to him, bending forward and gliding through the ropes. 

“I just don’t want to step on your little bare feet in my big, hard, shoes.”

She turns to a guy with a shaved tattooed scalp and orders him to judge the match. Mulder takes his spot at the center of the ring and waits for her to crouch before him. They stare and sway, distance between them as solid and even as the desk in their office. Her gloves are up around her face, the muted red clashing with the copper in her hair. She bounces on the balls of her feet, neck of her shirt slackening between her armpits to betray a black bra.

“Are you going to let these guys think you’re afraid of me?” she asks. He throws a purposefully weak right-cross and she slips under it, then throws a hard punch at his shoulder with a surprising sting.

“I’m impressed,” he says, and with that one patronizing remark, begins to lose. She performs a dance of expert dodging, using his height to her advantage as she moves nimbly, making a burden of his long arms, keeping clear of the middle distance where he’d be able to reach her but she wouldn’t be able to reach back. His gawkiness forces him to concentrate and in the deep haze of focus, he throws a punch – hard - clocking her right on the chin. He flinches, but she takes it smoothly, barely gasping, face whipping toward the floor and back in a breath.

“There’s that big, hard man you were talking about.”

The words ‘big’ and ‘hard’ land in his gut, coming in hot off the runway of tension between them. The small, strong muscles in her arms are flexing, her core closed up tight beneath her soft fist-sized breasts in their sexy black bra. He feels a distinct stiffening below the belt.

She crosses the middle distance as his eyes drift, until she is tucked up close to him, wisely going to the body. The heavy-handed kick of his Old Spice deodorant mingles with the powdery scent of her sweat as she punches and he blocks. Adrenaline travels in confused gushes through his veins, running and then changing direction, caught between the desire to fuck and fight. She has only invited him to do one of the above, he reminds himself. He snaps to attention, chases her away, landing a hard blow to her shoulder. She staggers and he reflexively puts his gloves on the sides of her waist to steady her.

She stares at him with something like competitiveness, but the way she rolls her tongue over her bottom lip gives it the rougey tint of desire. His hands feel immovable in the gloves, clamping her clumsily around the waist, unbudging. Her fighting stance loosens only slightly as he bows his face closer to hers. Her gloves are still up, pressing but not pushing against his stomach. He feels the leather of them slide a bit down the flat front of his torso. As their lips touch, it is silent and perfect and they are not in a smelly gym where someone was murdered potentially by their own shadow and he is kissing Scully and she is going to let him have pizza and he loves his fucking life. 

But in a moment, it is spoiled by a cruel gurgle of male laughter and catcalling, and Scully’s gloves shove him hard. He sees the furious blue of her eyes multiply into intangible spots in the air before his brain finally tells him he’s hurt. He’s taken an uppercut to the jaw and blood is spurting from his lip where it met his teeth. Red liquid drips gorily down his chin and onto his shirt. By the time it fully registers that he’s bleeding, she has her right glove between bicep and hip, pulling it off like a running shoe against the arch of a foot. She covers the cut with her thumb, letting the blood trickle over her finger.

“Get me a First Aid Kit,” she says over her shoulder and the boxers gawk at the tiny machine that has made a man twice her size bleed and is now issuing orders to their Tattooed-Scalp Leader. They didn’t see it coming, but Mulder should have known better.

As they climb down, Tattooed Scalp hands her the First Aid kid and saunters off with the disappointment of someone who was hoping this would end in either nudity or death, not with the tall guy seated on a bench like a sidelined dodgeball kid, the hot girl bent forward holding an ice pack to his mouth.

“I’m fine, Scully.” A wisp of hair at the corner of her hairline has curled with expended effort and he is trying to stifle the urge to twirl it. He fails, takes it around one finger. She blinks self-consciously.

“Does this hurt?” she asks gently, pressing a hand into one of his sore ribs.

“You know, you… have a black eye… too…” he says, mustering some macho pride. They both know it’s her makeup, but she doesn’t say so.

“I’m sorry. I knew you weren’t wearing a mouth guard,” she says quietly. “But you surprised me with the kiss.” He looks back at her. This is their usual arena, where the fight is fair. They can match one another blow for blow, fight with their eyes. 

“That was the idea, to catch you off guard.” 

“Was it,” she says without a question mark.

“Tactical,” he insists.

“Mm.”

“They were laughing at me. Girl in the ring, getting kissed.”

“You’re right. I deserved it.”

She moves the ice from his lip and runs her thumb very gently over the swollen skin there, blood scared off by the cold. By anyone’s account, she won that fight, but he knows she’s going to let him have pizza. He’ll have to cut it into bites to avoid opening up his lip on the crust. 

“Feel better?” she asks sweetly. He lets his cheek lean a bit into her hand.

“Yeah. But mostly because you smell really good and I can see down your shirt.” She looks down for a second, then back at him.

“That was the idea.” 

It’s his move, his to win, he thinks, if only he can make contact. Gloves off, right cross, left jab, hands to her waist, her jaw, her shoulders. But before he can act, she is slipping and parrying over to her blazer. And he is chasing her shadow.


End file.
